Of Wagers, Bees, and God

As the morning sun chased away any lingering clouds from last night’s thunderstorms, students on the New England High School Summer Program arrived at Gould Commons for breakfast with a stark realization: today was Friday, and their first week of classes was almost over! Determined to make the most of their remaining time, they traipsed excitedly to St. Gianna Molla Hall for the day’s classes.

One delight of engaging with Thomas Aquinas College’s integrated curriculum is discovering mutual connections between vastly different texts. There are some questions that everyone seems compelled to ask — even if there are as many proposed answers as there are people! Today’s readings juxtaposed several answers to one of the most pressing of all questions: What is the relationship between faith and reason?

The first proposal came from the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, who argued that, because there is an infinite distance between God and human reason, no one could possibly have knowledge of God without direct revelation and more or less blind faith. Students mapped out his famous “wager,” wherein Pascal proposed that although we cannot reason to God’s existence, it is still more advantageous to believe in Him and act accordingly than to disbelieve and risk eternal punishment.

While Pascal’s argument is compelling, many students left their morning class hesitant about his decision to cast reason aside. Over tuna melts and sugar peas, they eagerly exchanged and discussed their misgivings about the morning’s reading. “I don’t think it’s right to say we can’t reason to God’s existence,” said student Sophia B. “I think we really encounter God in all of Creation and can understand that He exists through that.” Students around her lunch table agreed.

And so did St. Thomas Aquinas. After lunch, students returned to the classroom, where they had the chance to discuss St. Thomas’s famous Fifth Way for arguing that God exists. In this proof, St. Thomas ponders the rational, directive principle by which natural things act for an end, famously comparing nature’s efforts to an arrow launched at a target: The arrow only reaches its goal because of the guiding hand of the archer. Natural things act for an end, says St. Thomas, only because God directs them in that direction in the first place.

Complementing St. Thomas’s philosophical argument was an excerpt from the writings of Jean Henri Fabre, a French naturalist who examined the lives and habits of insects in exhaustive detail. In today’s excerpt, Fabre delightfully describes the inner workings of a beehive. He calls bees “geometers,” explaining that their hexagonal honeycombs are the most ideal shape for nesting and honey storage. But can bees do geometry? That question lent substance to the students’ efforts to unravel St. Thomas’s short but dense proof.  

Buzzing like Fabre’s bees, students poured from the classroom still chatting about their discussions: They celebrated Fabre’s colorful language, wondering why he made the bees seem so human. They also tied Fabre’s narrative to St. Thomas’s argument. “I loved how we made the connection between St. Thomas’s Divine Archer and Fabre’s Sublime Geometer!” said student Bridget H.

With the school day concluded, and with it the first week of the Summer Program, students let off steam during a few hours of open recreation. But more will be coming soon! Come back tomorrow to read about what the Summer Programmers are up to tonight!